Kimbrough's explanation is simple: He wanted to wait until he had had enough time to get to know Dillard so that Dillard would have enough time to know him.

Because of the wait, "I have a sense of place," Kimbrough, 46, said a few days before the ceremony. "You don't want people giving these inaugural speeches after three months because they really don't know what they're talking about. People want you to be engaged, and that's what I like."

That started early on, when he and his wife, Adria, bought Dillard vanity plates for their cars. The reaction, he said, was instantaneous and positive: "We know you're here."

Kimbrough has shown up at off-campus meetings where he can represent the Dillard brand, and he has let it be known that he's approachable. "I can't go anywhere on campus and get from Point A to Point B without somebody stopping to say, 'Hey, how are you doing?'" he said. "I've been in meetings the last three days in Cleveland and Charlotte. A student sent me a text, 'Is everything OK? I haven't seen you in forever.' That's refreshing."

Kimbrough, who grew up in Atlanta, said that goes with the territory. "When you're in the South, you have to embrace the people so people can love on you," he said. "That's what people do in the South. They love on you. It's great."

Kimbrough also said he has learned something sobering in his time at Dillard: Even though he had spoken of representing the post-Hurricane Katrina era because he had nothing to do with the storm and subsequent flooding that trashed the campus, he learned it's not easy to close the book on what has been the most turbulent chapter in the school's history.

"I'm learning just how disruptive it was," he said. "People have seen images that I can't even imagine. When people hear about a named storm, you can see it. I saw it in people's eyes for Isaac."

By the end of this semester, about $400 million in Katrina-related repairs will be complete when work on Camphor Hall, a dormitory, is done.

"You think, why did it take so long?" Kimbrough said. "Then you hear the stories" about obstacles New Orleanians encountered such as insurance snafus and the difficulty in finding workers who were qualified and honest.

That, he said, was then.

"We can put the period on the Katrina years," Kimbrough said. "They're over. We're moving to a new era, but we have been disrupted because of Katrina, so now we have to go back and say, 'OK, after all this tragedy has happened, there's a new reality. Things have changed a lot since Katrina in terms of our society. Who are we today? How do we respect our history and embrace that? How do we function in this environment?'

"That's the conversation that I'm leading, because we need to define it and go forward with a sense of purpose. Let's define who we are in the 21st century and start moving in that direction, with purpose."